2 DPD leaders under investigation for alleged conduct with subordinates

Oct. 26, 2012

Detroit Free Press file photo

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Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Two command officers of the Detroit Police Department are being investigated for alleged inappropriate conduct with subordinates just weeks after former Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. was forced to retire amid a sex scandal involving an internal affairs officer, Interim Chief Chester Logan said today.

Although Logan would not go into details, a member of his administrative staff said that Cmdr. James Moore is being investigated by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office for alleged domestic violence involving an incident in a party store — caught on surveillance videotape — with a female co-worker.

Meanwhile, Inspector Donald Johnson is being investigated by the department’s Internal Affairs for allegedly sending suggestive text messages to a female co-worker whose rank was described as “executive level” by the administrative staffer, who is not authorized to speak about the investigation.

Neither has been suspended, although Johnson was put on paid furlough this week. Prosecutors, who months ago declined to charge Moore, are revisiting his case after the surveillance videotape surfaced, the staffer said.

Logan, at an unrelated police event today in southwest Detroit, said: “It depends on what we find” before any decision can be made to suspend or terminate the men. He spoke while standing beside Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, moments after the two cut a ribbon reopening and renaming the 4th Precinct station in southwest Detroit.

The new name is part of a plan to revive the city’s old police precincts, after the Kilpatrick administration combined them in 2005 into far larger districts, Bing said.

Bing, fresh off demanding the retirement of Godbee and pledging that the department would no longer tolerate sexual peccadilloes in the ranks, said earlier this week that the city is creating a policy to prevent command officers from having sexual relationships with subordinates.

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“I’m disappointed. ... This is something that will not be tolerated,” he said today, with Logan at his side.

“We’ll wait until we get the facts,” Bing said.

If the allegations are true, “I think it’s horrific,” Bing said, adding: “I think we’ve got a culture — maybe in the department, certainly across the city — that needs to change.”

Neither Johnson or Moore could be reached for comment Friday.

The department has been hit by repeated scandals involving top brass having affairs with subordinates. Former Police Chief Warren Evans was ousted in July 2010 when Bing learned that Evans was involved with a subordinate. Godbee replaced Evans, although he and Bing acknowledged at the time that Godbee, too, had been involved with the same subordinate that Evans was dating.

A search is currently under way for a permanent chief.

This is not the first time Moore has landed in potential trouble. He was suspended with pay in November 2009 for conduct unbecoming of an officer after he crashed his newly issued department squad car on I-75 near Clay on his way from a cancer fund-raiser for an officer’s child. He was cited for careless driving.

Later Friday, a spokeswoman for Prosecutor Kym Worthy said her office is forwarding the domestic violence investigation to another jurisdiction after learning she is acquainted with Moore’s wife.

“In light of this information, we will ask the attorney general to take the case or assign the case to another prosecutor to avoid any potential conflict of interest,” said Maria Miller.

The reports of misconduct within the department has seemed especially objectionable in an era of unrelenting crime and staff cutbacks in Detroit. And it has drawn embarrassing attention to a city whose image was already badly tarnished.

This month, comedian Jay Leno wisecracked in his "Tonight Show" monologue: “The police chief of Detroit was suspended after a female police officer said she had sex with him in exchange for a promotion.”

Leno’s punch line was “People are stunned — Detroit has a police department?”